The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 26, 2008
Filed:
Feb. 28, 2005
Sivaprasad V Padisetty, Redmond, WA (US);
Thirunavukkarasu Elangovan, Redmond, WA (US);
Sivaprasad V Padisetty, Redmond, WA (US);
Thirunavukkarasu Elangovan, Redmond, WA (US);
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
A generic automation framework is provided to divide a process into a sequence of stages. The stages in the process may depend on each other and this dependency dictates the flow of the process. A stage may be an instance of a stage type, which provides a generic definition of a stage. A stage may be customized according to the specific requirement of the process. A stage may have one or more properties. Such a property may reflect the status of the stage during the progression of the process, identify the owner responsible for proper execution of the stage, and describe an escalation policy that indicates what to do upon the occurrence of a particular event in the stage. A user interface may be provided that separately displays information for each stage. The user interface may also graphically indicate the status of each stage in the process at a given moment.